Wholesome reading of 2 Kings 18 and 19: the Seventh-day Adventist Interpretation

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Arts Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

There is not a single denomination in Christianity as well as Jewish interpretation of 2 Kings 18 and 19 that are not in a flat spin about these two chapters. I am very thankful for Seventh-day Adventist Theological Schools and Seminaries, as well as lecturers like Prof. Johan Japp, Dr. Siegfried Horn, Dr. Edwin Thiele, Dr. William Shea et al who has brought to light many good aspects regarding the issues in these two chapters. The Seventh-day Adventist position on 2 Kings 18 and 19 is the only consistent, wholesome, harmonious, protective view of the veracity of the Word of God. Other denominations and commentaries are suffering from conflation of data, ascribing errors to the Word of God and many other problems.

It will be good for us to highlight the solutions to these chapters here in a simple manner.

One needs to know that Shalmanezer V came in 723 BCE to Samaria to take the Israelites into Captivity. He was killed by his general Sargon II who reigned from 721 BCE until 705 BCE and his son Sennecherib took the throne until he was murdered by his two oldest sons in the temple in 684 BCE. Three Assyrian rulers of which the first and last are mentioned in these chapters.

2 Kings 18:2 reads:

He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah[a] daughter of Zechariah.

Hezekiah became king in 716 BCE when his father died. He reigned for 29 years down to 687 BCE, when he died.

2 Kings 18:9-10 reads:

In King Hezekiah’s fourth year, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and laid siege to it. At the end of three years the Assyrians took it. So Samaria was captured in Hezekiah’s sixth year, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel.

To the shock of many Christian scholars and commentators, it reads that in Hezekiah’s 4^th year, Shalmanezer V came to take Samaria. They could not make sense of this and the general feeling is that the historiographer got some screws lose and that he confused data. He didn’t. They are confused. There are two counting systems here, one from Hezekiah’s date when he was coronated king after his father’s death and one from the date when he was made crownprince, so that the 4^th year from crownprince, while his father is alive, is 723 BCE when Shalmanezer V came to Samaria to take the Israelites and thus the date of his crownprince allocation was 727 BCE.

Hezekiah was a good king as we learned from 2 Kings 18:7:

And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

2 Kings 18:13-15 reads:

In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 14 So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me.” The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents[c] of silver and thirty talents[d] of gold. 15 So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace.

This was in 716, the 14^th year of Hezekiah and he was totally scared of Sennacherib who came in 716-14 lunar years = 701 BCE. He was on his knees and paid money to save himself.

From this point, nearly all commentators are making gross errors reading the Word of God. They took the events as indicating all the same history in one scoop presented. Again, that is not the case. Careful reading shows the opposite.

In order to discover the opposite scenario, it is necessary to go to the end of chapter 19, since the events of chapter 19 starts just after Hezekiah gave the money in 2 Kings 18:17 all the way through to the end of 19.

2 Kings 19:37 reads:

One day, while he [Sennacherib] was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.

Sennacherib was assassinated in 684 BCE.

2 Kings 19:35 reads:

That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! 36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

The number of people killed was 185000, all as the Lord predicted through Isaiah. They returned to Assyria and the king was a broken man. The last years of Sennacherib are extremely scanty in documentation of Assyrian history. Maybe he was disgraced by this loss of soldiers?

This event must have happened before the death of Hezekiah in 687 BCE. Scholars are at loss. They cannot bring together a victorious money receiving Assyrian ruler with this running away to Niniveh due to such a great loss of soldiers. So what do other denominations and their commentaries do? They ascribe the Word of God as full of errors and conflicts. But it isn’t.

2 Kings 18:19 reads:

The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah:‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours?’”

Hezekiah had confidence that bothered king Sennacherib and this data does not link with Hezekiah so afraid that he had to pay a huge ransom for his own life ten verses earlier.

Whereas other Christian and Jewish scholars are sitting with their hands in their hair, the Seventh-day Adventist scholars point out that we have here another campaign later than 701 BCE by Sennacherib to the area around Jerusalem. The boasting of Hezekiah “like a bird in a cage” by Sennacherib was in 701 BCE and that is the same as 2 Kings 18:9-10 but having Sennacherib worried about Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18:19 simply means that in 689 BCE, a time well fitting for the young Tirhaka of the Nubian Empire of Egypt to advance towards Sennacherib and worry him, in 689 BCE, the events from 2 Kings 18:17ff. are described.

In this Second Sennacherib campaign against Hezekiah, Hezekiah stood tall as counseled by Isaiah and Sennacherib and his troops were on the run. Of course, Sennacherib and his historiographers lacked the ethical character to report Sennacherib’s well-known and painful defeat near Jerusalem, as the Word of God reported it.

Dear God

I am glad to be a Seventh-day Adventist who interprets the Word of God as wholesome, harmonious, error free, fitting to history and historical sciences and that we do not have to do any apologies about the biblical historiographers. Keep guiding our interpretation, we pray, Amen.